Never Give Up on a Good Picnic Table

Wayne writing at the picnic table with its winter enclosure.

When we purchased our cabin in 2001, it came with a bright red picnic table handmade by our good friend John.

Over the years it's had lots of use for meals, crafts, gardening chores, chainsaw sharpening, and Wayne's writing projects. In 2007, our table had it's first catastrophe. It lost two legs to wood rot (Leg Surgery for a Picnic Table). I guess it's termed dry rot, but in this case it was more like wet rot. John came to the rescue and gave it two new legs to stand on.

Over the years benches and tabletop slats have been replaced a few at a time, and Wayne has added multiple coats of paint to keep out the wet. Not much of the original table remains, but we don't want to give up on it. Like the Seven Million Dollar Man, "We can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to make [him] better than he was before," so to speak.

But it's happened again. Another leg has broken. I sure wish John had patented those picnic table socks to help prevent wood rot. Wayne searched through our supply of old shake blocks and found one that would provide a temporary fix until John can build us a new bionic one. -- Margy